Chapter 23 #3
“It’s hard not to. She was pretty famous. My mom used to blast her on the radio while cleaning the house when I was younger. Had the records. Posters. Whole thing.”
Wren laughs—really laughs—and something about it breaks my chest wide open.
“That was his favorite music,” she says.
“Didn’t matter how rough of a day it was—if my mom’s band was playing on the radio, he’d grab my hand and spin me around like we were at a honky-tonk.
We used to dance across the tile until I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.
He always did this ridiculous two-step, tried to teach it to me every time. I never got it right.”
She’s not smiling wide, but her mouth is soft and open like the memory still lives close to the surface.
Her arms are fully around my neck now, and I don’t remember when that happened.
Her body is pressed against mine in a way that’s less casual now—less accidental.
Her hips are close enough that I could press her back against the railing if I wanted to.
I do want to. But I don’t.
Instead, I hold her. Let my thumb drift just slightly along the exposed part of her spine.
She looks up at me finally. And this close, I can see everything—the flecks in her eyes, the tension she carries in her jaw.
“Your turn,” she says.
“My turn for what?”
“To tell me something good.”
I hesitate. Not because I don’t want to give her something—but because I don’t know where to look for it. Not right away.
It takes me a second to realize that’s my problem—I don’t look for good things anymore. I stopped when the best ones I had were suddenly gone.
But I dig anyway. And eventually, I land on something.
“When I was a kid,” I say slowly, “my dad and I used to leave each other notes. Nothing serious—mostly stupid jokes.”
Wren doesn’t interrupt. Just nods and listens.
“My brothers and I had this book full of them. Dad jokes. Really bad ones. We thought it was hilarious. We’d tear out pieces of notebook paper and leave them around the house—under his keys, in the glovebox, tucked into his wallet. He’d always write back. Always.”
A breath moves through me, quieter than I mean for it to be.
“I still remember what it felt like to find one. That excitement of seeing my name in his handwriting, knowing he’d seen it and laughed. Or maybe pretended to.”
Wren’s eyes are still on mine. She shifts slightly, just enough to press her arms tighter around my neck.
“I think that’s why I still like handwritten notes,” I say. “It means someone took time out of their messy life to think about you. To give it to you. Doesn’t sound like much, but it feels like it.”
I shrug, my thumb still brushing the base of her spine.
“He got busy, though. When I got older. He stopped leaving them. I guess we both did.”
Wren’s smile is small but real. She’s still looking up at me, like I said something that made her see me differently. Or maybe more clearly. She nods once, slow.
“Okay,” she says. “Now tell me the best joke. I want to hear it.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “That’s a lot of pressure.”
“Come on.” She tips her chin up. “Make it count.”
I pretend to think, even though I’ve already got the one. It’s terrible. Which is exactly why it’s perfect.
“Alright,” I say, straight-faced. “Did you know that diarrhea is hereditary?”
She scrunches her nose, but she waits.
“It runs in your jeans,” I say.
There’s a full beat of silence. Her mouth drops open a little. Then—
She bursts out laughing. Big, unfiltered, head-tipped-back laughter.
And then she snorts. Actually snorts. Followed immediately by a gasp and her hand flying to her mouth like she can shove it back in.
“Oh my god!” she says behind her fingers, eyes wide.
I’m already laughing. I can’t help it. The sound of it—her laugh, the ridiculousness of it, the shock on her face—it’s too much.
“Wren Margaret Wilding,” I say, grinning like an idiot. “Did you just…snort?”
“That never happened,” she says quickly, voice muffled by her hand.
“Oh, it happened.”
She shakes her head. “You imagined it.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life,” I say, still laughing. “You snorted. Like, full volume. From the chest.”
She drops her hand, still laughing, her eyes watery now. “You’re the worst.”
I don’t say what I’m actually thinking—which is that I’d tell a thousand bad jokes just to hear that sound again.
“You’re lucky I didn’t go with the one about the paper being tearable.”
She laughs again—this full, open sound that slips right under my skin—and her arms come back around my neck like they never left, like being close to me is second nature.
And I think—
Do you ever have moments like this? Where the world feels like it suddenly paused in your favor?
Moments that are made of cold air stinging your skin and someone else’s warmth seeping into your bones and under your ribs?
Of a too loud laugh on a too quiet street, fingers tangled in your hair, the kind of quiet that isn’t really quiet because their breath is there, and yours, and the space between is just… alive?
You don’t realize it’s happening—not really.
Life doesn’t change with a lot of fanfare.
There’s no thunderclap, no orchestra swelling to mark the before and after.
It changes like a quiet tilt, a shift in the light.
The slow turn of a season. Like the moment between sleep and waking, when the world is soft at the edges.
You don’t feel it until it’s already done.
And then you’re standing there, holding her, and you think: I didn’t know my heart could make room like this.
Not by force. Not by forgetting. But by something gentler. Something real, and whole, and quietly life-altering in its own right.
I slide my hands to her waist. Not tentatively this time. Certain.
She fits there. Not in some metaphorical, soulmates type of way. Just literally. Physically. My hands fit around her. She fits with me. And for a second I let myself enjoy it, the simple humanness of the weight of her body pressed to mine.
This doesn’t feel like pretending. Not even a little.
It just feels like her. And me. And this moment that somehow exists outside of everything else.
Her fingers start to play with the hair at the back of my neck—soft and absentminded, like she’s thinking about something else, but her body didn’t get the memo.
She smirks. “As far as fake husbands go, I think I did alright. You even come with jokes.”
I smile. “A whole set.”
“Well, you’ll have to pull them out more often,” she says, still teasing, but not all the way. There’s something in her voice that says she wants to stay here a little longer.
“I can do that,” I say. “I might not be able to give you a promise of eternal devotion, or a sonnet written in my blood or whatever it is normal husbands offer. But dad jokes?” I shrug. “Those I’ve got in spades.”
She grins at that. It starts in the corner of her mouth and slowly takes over her whole face.
I hold her a little tighter.
“And watermelon in the summer. Dancing in the kitchen.” I pause, clearing my throat. “With me. I can give you those, too.”
Her smile shifts. Not brighter—just softer, like it folds into her instead of blooming outwards. She lays her head on my shoulder without a word, and I rest my chin gently against her temple.
The world keeps spinning, but we don’t. We stay here—still, steady—like we’ve slipped out of time.
And if this is all it ever is…her, in my arms, the quiet between us holding more than either of us will say—I think it might still be more than enough.